So 26AM Design Studio (my company) recently started working on a site for a client that hosts with iPowerWeb. iPowerweb is definitely not the worst web host i’ve been on. However it’s not the best web host i’ve been on either. First off, they have some wierd email problems. Emails do get through to their system, however any incoming mail still sends the sender a “recipient did not receive this email” message.

Secondly, their control panel interface is not super straight forward. I realize they just upgraded to their new VDeck, but it still doesn’t feel intuitive. Getting around the interface is a little clunky. It’d be nice to see some drop down menus so you can get to and from anywhere to anywhere in the interface in one click without having to click the back button to get back to another part of the site.

I haven’t seen them go down yet. So I guess uptime is good.

iPowerWeb.com does have a good feature set and most common scripts/apps work out of the box (ala. Joomla, Drupal, osCommerce.)
iPowerWeb Support SUCKS! I was on hold for 45 minutes and still did not reach an agent. I finally hung up and gave up. It’s not just me. I finally told my client to call them on his own. He had the same prob. I suspect we’ll migrate them to MediaTemple in the next month or so. We’ll see. I can’t believe I’m going to write this. But I’d probably choose 1AND1 over iPowerWeb.

In the world of cheap web hosting, it’s hard to say if I’d rather take good support + okay uptime over features and POOR support. I’d say settle for neither and pay a bit more for a better host (ala. MediaTemple, Pair Networks, SliceHost). However if you’re on a budget and have a low traffic website, find someone else. Just find some decent support.

Okay thats all for now.

Okay, so this week I’ve had my share of frustration installing an SSL Certificate on MediaTemple GS. As usual the solution was a simple one, but the frustration was definitely frustrating. I really like GoDaddy SSL Certificates for the obvious fact that they’re CHEAP! 256 Bit for $29.99 is a price that can’t be beat. But installation onto MediaTemple isn’t as obvious. After following the directions in the MediaTemple SSL guide, the cert did go in, however browser’s weren’t liking it and as a result popped up with “Invalid/Unrecognized Certificate” errors. Not good of course, especially in a professional environment. After calling MediaTemple several times and each support rep insisting that it was just a DNS propogation thing, I waited for the full 48 hours. Of course during those 48 hours I was frustrated and unconvinced. I use OpenDNS which updates within a few minutes.

At last, a support rep at MediaTemple told me I needed to install the Chain Certificate because there was a browser compatibility issue with the certificate. Problem solved! Thanks last support rep! Hopefully MediaTemple will update the docs to include the specific instructions for GoDaddy certs.

You can get the GoDaddy chain files here:

https://certificates.godaddy.com/Repository.go

If you’re using their cheapest option, the chain file you need is titled: gd_bundle.crt

You’ll want to save the file and open it with some text editor, copy all the text and paste it into the appropriate box in your MediaTemple Account Center.

Cheers! Happy SSLing!

Today’s meeting with a new client got me thinking about CMS (Content Management System). To this point all commercial sites I’ve released on a CMS have been on Joomla!. I do have some things that I don’t like about it. But when I look at all the things I love about it, they far out way the cons. This post isn’t about Joomla! or any other named CMS for that matter. This most recent client of mine is coming from a relationship with a designer where he/she kept the Client in the dark, didn’t tell them that CMS was even available… gouged them for what I would consider out dated mediocre non standards based design.

So they come to me asking for CMS features (ability to update their own content, interact with clients…). However I am quite aware that they do not want to fork out the money to recreate their website when they just did that a year ago. So this got me to thinking, is it always best practice to use a CMS for every website.

I would have to say 90% of the time it is best to use a CMS of some sort. Whether thats Wordpress, Drupal, Typo3, or Joomla, I would generally throw a CMS in there. Reason being, at some point your client will most likely ask for the ability to update his/her own website. The only instance I wouldn’t use a CMS would be if the project would not grow for a LONG time, or if the site were very graphic and flash heavy, such as a typical band, movie, or recording artist website. These types of sites usually push into the realm of art pieces anyways. A little different. I have seen sites that are 30 and 40 pages deep with no underlying CMS. I pity the man that has to update that site.

So everyone around the PHP CSS community is big on this Web 2.0. There’s a certain look that seems to be characteristic of this new web. So far that look seems to be “bloggish” looking. Now I do like the bloggish look provided that it is used on a blog. But the bloggish look is not always effective when trying to sell a product. So I am stuck somewhere in between. Many of The Pear Lab (my) clients are content driven but beyond that still somewhat sales driven.

So the balance I am looking for is blogra. I call it blogra because it is somewhat bloggish and somewhat graphic. Look around the CSS community and you’ll know what I mean. For now here are some of latest designs. Tell me what you think. Are they bloggish? Are they sales looking?

FOPC (Frontpage) - FOPC (Insidepage)

Witz Products (Frontpage) - Witz Products (Insidepage)

So we’ve all seen a lot of bad uses of fonts. But then sometimes we find ourselves being the very culprits of bad font usage. Or perhaps you find yourself stuck in the rut of using the same font over and over again. While there are many great fonts out there, one should consider changing fonts for different ocassions, but also for different applications.

Now when I use the word “application” i don’t mean print, web or some other medium. I mean the particular arena in which the font will bue used. For example if you are going to use a font for a church, that may not be a good font to use for a children’s day care. Or if you are creating a website for a corporation, giving them a destroyed font may not be your choice either. It all depends on the application and audience.

With that said, here are a couple of pet peves that I’ve picked up over the years from many different sources.

Papyrus - This font just sucks. Now if you’re guilty of using it, don’t go out and hang yourself. My guess would be that most people use it because they somehow think it’s fancy, but modern. Or they want a textured looking font. So rather than find the right font and apply texture, they find Papyrus. Papyrus is technically a bad font. Poor construction. Difficult to read.

Comic Sans - There is an entire website dedicated to ridding the world of this font. I don’t particularly hate this font. However one must understand that it was created for comic book text. This font should never ever be used to typeset a book, formal paper, or aything beyond one sentence. It wasn’t made for that.

Some basic things to consider when selecting a font:Â

1. Consider your audience. I’ve seen lots of flyers targeted at a young crowd using some old traditional looking font. More often than not it’s Times New Roman. Times isn’t bad, but who’s kidding who. Times is very formal and stiff looking.
2. Legibility. Now on the other side of cold and dry fonts are overly animated/ornate looking fonts. Whether the font is destroyed looking or ultra frilly, neither is legible. People find fonts like RAGE Italic and squeeze the type together and write a whole story and some how think other people can read it. They can’t. And if people can’t read your message, you’re better off not giving it.

 Some other basics to using fonts:

1. Try to narrow your design/document down to two major fonts. Don’t go crazy using a different font for every heading. This creates a very disjoined unorganized looking design.
2. Be creative with just one font. You can use one font with bolds, different sizes, compressed, extended and even italic. One font can be used in so many different ways. Use it.
3. Use a san serif font or serif font depending on your content. San serif gives off a very clean and modern look. Serifed fonts can also be clean, however they make a document look very formal and sometimes a little rigid.

Those are just a few thoughts on fonts for now. Now go start fonting.

Lately I’ve been branching out and exploring different styles of design. I dont’ feel I’ve strayed from the fundamental roots that I’ve learned. These roots include principals of color, white space, and movement. However I do feel that I am moving away from the ultra plain ultra obvious type of design and getting into an exploratory mode.

One area I feel I am branching out (as far as my own designs are concerned) is color. While I do have a strange affinity toward monochromatic or even duotone designs, I am learning just how to design with not even a full spectrum but tri tone and quad tone. It adds an entirely new dimension.

When color is not in the equation, the only parties responsibility for movement on a page are size, form, and density. But when color is on the page, a completely new element is responsible for one’s eye crawling across your pages or screen. I can’t decide in my mind whether color or form holds a greater posession on the eye. No matter how crazy a black shape you have, if there is a red dot in its center, your eye will be sucked into the red dot.

Another element that I am learning and exploring is depth. This all started really because of a friend of mine (Cindy Tsang’s) critique of one of my pieces. So take this very simple drawing. Now take the words underneath the piece. There is a great conflict in my brain as far as depth is concerned. The writing because of it’s opacity appears to be behind the tree. Though because of overlap, we know it is placed in front of the tree. This might be okay if it carried the same dimensional qualities as the tree. Do you see the problem? So I guess I would have to say I’m learning the idea of recession into space without using a plain. Rather recision purely by color and weight.

Thats what I’m pondering right now. But in the mean time here are some of my most recent pieces I thought I’d share.

• Theophilus layout (Alpha)
• VOX Postcards 1, 2, 3
• Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church, FOPC Reflect Business Card

Theres more. But nothing I want to post at the moment. Cheers! We’re off to a great week!